Island city

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We arrived in Bangkok, got ripped off for a taxi ride to the train station via the hospital. I queued for a ticket for the train to Ayutthaya and paid a total of 60 baht for the four of us. There is approx 62 baht to the pound. When the guy gave me the tickets he said that we needed to be quick as the train was going to leave in 1 minute. So off we go at high speed, well as fast as you can with 40 kg’s strapped to your back, to the platform, only to watch the train pulling away. I started waving and shouting for them to stop then, fully expecting the train to go without us, stopped to let the girls catch up with me. The guard in the mean time stopped the train and waited for us. So on we got and tried to find a seat. I mistakenly sat next to a monk who tried to explain to me in very broken English that I couldn’t sit there and we realised that it is bad manners to sit next to a monk. They seemed to be all congregated at the one end of the last carriage so we assumed that area is normally reserved for them. The journey was largely uneventful except for the great scenery and beautiful birds in the paddy fields. The conductor even remembered where we were going and told us which stop to get off at.
We got a tuk tuk when we got off of the train and rather stupidly I hadn’t written the address of the guesthouse down. I had been more concerned with train times and getting from the airport. I naively thought that Ayutthaya was not a very big place. Fortunately I remember roughly where it was and gave the driver basic directions. Then we kept an eye out for the sign, which we found quite quickly. After the driver dropped us off we got the spiel about the temples and stuff. Needles to say we weren’t very interested and just wanted to get settled in but agreed to him coming in the morning to pick us up.

The Amporn floatel is a four bedroom guest house that is on the river with a shared bathroom. We had already emailed and booked the two doubles. We would reccomend the place.
We had previously arranged to meet up with my cousin and his girlfriend in Ayutthaya at the guest house. Thinking that they would turn up the day after we got there, they surprised us by turning up 10 minutes after us.
There next surprise was to announce that they were no longer boyfriend and girlfriend and that Matt had gone down on one knee on the bridge over the river Kwai and Tarnia had accepted. We thought it very romantic and quite a story to tell people. How many people can say that their partner proposed to them on the bridge over the river Kwai?
We spent a pleasant few days with them doing not a lot. Trying, mainly, to recover from Siem Reap. Matt reacquainted himself with fishing. He got the bug after watching the lads on the house boat next door. We found a fishing shop, by complete accident, and he umed and arrred for a few hours before buying a telescopic rod, reel, weights, hooks, line, bait, spinner and a few other odds and sods for a little under £30. Bargain.
We raced back to the guest house to give it a try, only to be sorely disappointed, much to the amusement of the lads on the house next door.
The next day we went to a huge shopping centre out of town (Tesco Lotus) and spent most of the afternoon wandering around amazed at the price and array of the stuff on offer.
We had a disagreement with the tuk tuk driver about the price which we should pay to get back to town. To put it in to perspective we were arguing over less than 30 pence but ferangs pay an entirely different price to the locals. It is more about not being ripped off than it is about the price, and tuk tuk drivers will generally rip you off.
Anyway when we got back Matt started casting into the river. Convinced that the fishing the day before was just a warm up. I have no idea what happened but I was given the job of landing man and they came thick and fast. Matt at one point got up to get a drink and nearly lost the rod down the river to a rather large fish. Without a keep net we were filling up buckets and large bowls to keep the fish in.
One thing that struck me as very strange about the place we were staying was the fact the river would have tides and the direction of flow of the river would change. Ayutthaya itself is an island surrounded by the convergence of three rivers, but to get tides and changing directions just baffled me.
The next evening we had to say goodbye to Matt and Tarnia as after a month of travelling around Thailand they had to go back to jobs in the UK.
After having put our tuk tuk driver off we finally relented and got a tour of some of the temples. I am sorry to report that they are very lack lustre after Angkor. Aisha, having seen the postcard, wanted to see the Buddha head in the tree and Ellie wanted to see the huge gold Buddha. It is strange what a lack of ferangs can do to a place. Most of the visitors are Thais and it is on a much smaller scale to what happens at Angkor. Even the stall holders don’t hassle you, well perhaps a little but it is all light hearted. We even had a ride on the elephants much to the girls delight. We turned up at a place and watched an elephant playing a mouth organ and dancing. It was quite amazing. Ellie and I got on the first elephant and Chloe and Aisha on the second. It is not dissimilar to riding a camel. Due to this taking pictures of the wat’s is some what interesting. When we got back we watched another elephant doing hula hoop on his trunk.
After the driver dropped the girls at the guest house I got him to take me to the local shopping centre to try and find someone to fix the DVD writer on the laptop. After 10 minutes of gestures and laughing at me I left as they had not idea what I was talking about. I then got another tuk tuk to the Tesco lotus shopping centre as there was absolutely loads of computer stalls there and most spoke reasonable English. When I arrived to show them the problem the damn thing worked. As soon as I got back to the guest house it stopped working again.
I went to see Chutima, the manager, to settle our bill and find out if she could ring the train company to find out the times. The main reason was the only one that would get us to Bangkok in time for our flight, as advertised on the net, said that it left at 7.12 in the morning. This meant we would have a four hour wait at the airport before we could check in.
Oh well, shower number three of the day and out for tea. We went to a place called the islander which was a lot cheaper than every where else we had been and was also closer. We had four meals, three sprites, two large tiger beers and four bottles of water all for a grand total of 475 baht!!!!!!!!!!!!! That’s approximately 8 of your English pounds. The Thai green curry was fantastic but the girls keep complaining about the smells I am producing!!!???
The following morning we caught the 9.40 train to Bangkok from platform 3. That’s a laugh as the platform was a wooden walkway across the tracks to the one the train pulled up on.
When we arrived at Bangkok station we tried to get a taxi and a guy took a bag off of me to take us around the corner to us his taxi. He gave up half way and hailed a metered taxi for us. Muggins here was wandering around with both bags quite happily. We though it quite amusing that he gave up, he didn’t seem too upset by the fact he had lost his fare.
We got to the airport and Chloe started to feel seasick. She is putting it down to having spent a week on a house boat and every time a boat went past on the river we were bouncing all over the place and not really noticing it. She says that she has withdrawal symptoms and her body is trying to make her move, if that makes sense. For some very strange reason it does to me.
We are now in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. It is nice to breathe fresh air again for the first time in three weeks. It is the capital city and the place is not absolutely manic. I think we are going to like Laos.

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Photos

Amporn Floatel
Notice the wooden planks on the right. That's how you get over to it. Trying to stop 2 small children falling in was, er, interesting!!

Tuk Tuk
We chose a pink one so that it wouldn't clash with Chloe's hair

Wat Mahathat
Aisha was very happy to see the head.

Golden Buddha
The picture gives no sense of size but this is over 12 metres tall!!

Wat Mahathat
Leaning tower of Ayutthaya

Wat Yai Chaimongkhon
Chilled out buddha

Wat Yai Chaimongkhon
This was built in the 1500's to celebrate victory over siam. It is enourmouse and can be seen from almost every where in the city.

Wat Yai Chaimongkhon
Buddhas as far as the eye can see.
And they are all intact